ESTA a year on

It is now over a year after ESTA (the US electronic visa waiver system) has started and worth a post on how it has developed.

Despite the initial promises of saving travellers time by replacing the green I94-W visa waiver entry form, for most the ESTA application is needed as well as an I94-W form. They are progressing slowly - a number of flights have a trial for not completing the I94-W form.

I was on one of the trial flights the other day. The immigration officer was not expecting a form and didn't even ask to confirm the flight number I was on. Perhaps this was because immigration at that time was quiet with no recent arrivals of other flights? I received a card "I-94W is going paperless" which explains to any check in or gate agent who expects to find a green stub from the I-94W that I legitimately don't have one.

Hopefully it will be paperless for everyone soon.

When ESTA was introduced, the legislation provided for future introduction of a fee for cost recovery. So far, ESTA is still free (unless you go to one of the many fake sites to register). However, a $10 tourism promotion fee will be charged later this year (date not yet confirmed).

When the fee is charged, effectively ESTA will have transitioned to become a visa, albeit lower cost than regular US visas.


Attention

If you are still reading this site then you haven't yet switched to the new Musings of The Global Traveller site. Please check out the new look & more content.

If you received this post in your feed reader or email this means the switch to the feed for the new Boarding Area site of Musings of The Global Traveller has not worked automatically for you. We're sorry about that. Please switch to use the new feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/MusingsOfTheGlobalTraveller.

So you don't miss any content, we'll repost at the old Musings of The Global Traveller site for a short period after the switch. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Flying or booking on JetBlue on 29-30 January?

The Wandering Aramean reports significant disruption for JetBlue flyers this weekend due to major reservation system upgrade. This will also affect anyone wanting to make or change a booking. The disruption is expected to start Friday afternoon and finish (hopefully) on Saturday.

Allow lots more time to check in for flights and expect flight delays.

Changes to flight security rules

This week I did a guest article on IndieTravelPodcast about increased security hassles in the aftermath of the underpants bomber.

Update on possible (probable?) British Airways strike in March

Talks between a cabin crew union and management at BA have so far failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion and yesterday the union advised the re-vote for strike will be proceeding (BBC). The first strike attempt for 12 days at Christmas failed due to a court ruling that the vote was improperly conducted.

This time the union will take more care, and their rhetoric suggests there is a high chance it will go ahead. The earliest possible strike date is about 2nd March with the latest possible strike commencement date of 29th March, just in time for Easter break.

Time to start looking at alternatives.

US Passenger Bill of Rights

When the US Passenger Bill of Rights (PBOR) were published last month I posted a brief mention but did not explain how they benefit flyers and how they have some limitations.

Overall approach

The US rights (link to full text here) are less comprehensive than the corresponding EU rights (EU regulation 261/2004) in that certain standards are left up to airlines to define and publish as policies. Ie the rule is there must be a policy and it must be published, but airlines are free to set their own standards in some respects.

That is not good for consumers. We already have variability in airline contract of carriage which also must be published, but such a miniscule proportion of flyers read them that there really is no competition between airlines to provide terms that are great for their customers.

Onboard on the ground time limited to 3 hours

There are some parts of the PBOR which are relatively set. Airlines cannot keep passengers onboard on the ground for more than 3 hours for domestic flights, or more than a time of their choosing (which must be published) for international flights. There are exemptions where the airport agrees that immediate disembarkation will be highly disruptive to airport operations. This clause is open to interpretation - it could be that airlines routinely are exempt due to inconvenience, or perhaps not.

At congested airports, in poor weather, and in unusual circumstances a rigourous enforcement of the time limit may result in more crowded terminals (boarding delayed if a risk of exceeding the 3 hours), more flight cancellations and reduced flights more generally. I'm not sure this is necessarily good for travellers.

Publish contingency plans

The PBOR has a requirement for airlines to publish contingency plans for every airport they fly to including any diversion airports, and to be accountable to passengers for following those contingency plans.

This seems to me to be a complete waste of time. Either the contingency plans published will be specific and then result in messy litigation afterwards when they are not followed properly, or they will be written as vague as possible to ensure the airline has sufficient flexibility to deal with varying circumstances and thus the airline can never be held accountable for errors in dealing with irregular operations. I much prefer the European approach which sets out what airlines must do at a minimum, for passengers affected by cancellations and delays. The question of how that is achieved is left to each airline to resolve.

Publish on-time performance

Every flight bookable on the airline website must include reference or a link to information on on-time performance of that flight. The PBOR sets out the required stats which includes cancellations as well as significant delays. The Department of Trade (DOT) will monitor flights which have excessively bad on-time performance and take punitive action against the airline (after 4 months with 50+% of flights 30+ minutes late arriving).

It is pleasing to see that DOT recognise that arrival time is more important than departure time. However, these requirements are likely to see even more schedule padding than already exists. While this makes valid connections easier to be made, it does have the disadvantages of making some connections which are currently legal (ie more than minimum connection times) illegal and thus reduces options for travellers.

How much benefit for flyers?

As with the EU regulation 261/2004, how well the US Passenger Bill of Rights works in practice will depend on interpretation by airlines and by the regulator, as well as the regulator's enforcement (or lack of) of the rules. In the EU the general impression is initially the regulations were not well enforced (airlines routinely using safety and circumstances out of their control exemptions) but it seems to have improved slightly over the past year or so. However, still many airlines do not meet the requirements - for example in the recent weather disruptions there are reports several airlines did not provide their customers with information on their minimum rights nor did they provide those automatically.

So, it probably is up to all the travelling public to be aware of our rights and demand airlines provide them when they are supposed to. Hopefully DOT will publish a handy leaflet which we can carry, much as EU has.

Another terminal evacuated due to entry through the wrong door

For the second time in two weeks an airport terminal at a major airport has been evacuated due to someone walking through the wrong door. This time it was New York's JFK terminal 8 that has been evacuated after a passenger went through a staff door (which shouldn't be possible if it is a secure area airside). Earlier this year it was Newark terminal C that was evacuated when a TSA agent failed to stop someone entering through an exit door.

In both cases many flights were disrupted across USA and around the world.

These incidents are good news for would-be suicide bombers. No need to die for their cause when chaos can be caused by something as simple as going the wrong way inside a terminal.

The year has hardly begun but already it is shaping up to be a bad one for TSA and also for the many travellers inconvenienced by ineptitude and poor security systems and processes.

9 hours onboard to go nowhere

I'm not referring to a flight returning to origin but one that didn't even leave.

The information from flightstats on British Airways flight BA227 to Atlanta makes for sorry reading. Scheduled departure time from London Heathrow was 2:05pm. My comments are enclosed in [ and ].

At 1:10pm, arrival time updated from 6:31pm to 6:29pm.
[An hour before departure the flight is on time.]

At 1:40pm, departure time updated from 2:05pm to 2:30pm (with corresponding adjustment to arrival time).
[A minor delay, perhaps due to use of a remote stand.]

At 2:35pm, departure time updated from 2:30pm to 2:45 pm.
[Another minor delay.]

At 3:05pm, departure time updated from 2:45pm to 3:00pm.
[The update has occurred a bit late but BA confident delay is not serious.]

At 10:54pm, flight status changed by London Heathrow airport to cancelled.
[Oops. 9 hours after boarding the airport records the cancellation of the flight instead of the airline.]

At 11:10pm, departure time recorded by BA as 6:52pm.
[End of flightstats record.]

The last record clearly is inconsistent with the previous one. Departure time being recorded many hours after the supposed time of departure is suspicious. It indicates the aircraft pushed back but didn't actually depart.

A passenger account on Flyer Talk is consistent with this, and reports that they were onboard for about 9 hours before the flight was cancelled.

Under EU regulation 261/2004 passengers are entitled to care under Article 8, Article 9(1)(a), 9(1)(b), 9(1)(c) and 9(2), and Article 7. Out of hours crew is not a valid exemption to Article 7 under the extraordinary circumstances waiver, but maintenance might be. The other Articles have no such exemptions and so must apply. Article 7 provides 600 euros compensation. Article 8 provides right for passengers to choose between refund of fare or relevant portion of fare (plus flight to return to origin for those who are in the middle of their tickets), or a re-routing under comparable conditions (ie same class of travel) at earliest opportunity. Article 9 requires free meals for the waiting time, hotel accommodation, transfer to and from accommodation, and 2 phone calls/faxes/emails.

Under the new USA passenger bill of rights, passengers would almost certainly have been returned to the terminal around 4:30pm or 6 hours earlier than they actually were.

TSA disowns problem of children prevented from flying

Today's TSA blog post is on the topic of recent media attention (eg NY Times) - children getting extra security attention because they match a name on the watchlist.

The TSA post says correctly the children are not on the watchlist but are caught due to having similar names, but then goes on to say SecureFlight will solve all once it is fully in place. (SecureFlight it has been partially rolled out.)

This completely misses the point. As I posted back in mid 2008, the watchlist catches many innocent people - with several million false matches. Since then the lists have gotten bigger - eg this Congressional Report in the wake of the Dec 25 underpants bomb attempt cites 540,000 names, apparently as at August 2008 (with a subset on the no fly list). A list with half a million names equates to tens of millions of false matches. Needless to say, this crude method of having a huge trawl-net of names to watch out for is completely ineffective as a means of security.

By devoting more resources to SecureFlight in an attempt to reduce the impact of false positive matches, TSA is in my view worsening security. The money could be much better spent on other true security initiatives. Indeed culling the watchlist would save a fortune too.

The downside of tight flight connections and complex itineraries

I do have a crazy schedule - flitting here and there across the globe, sometimes spending several nights in a row in the air as I try to get the most of my limited time available.

Small things have the potential to create significant disruption to my travel itineraries. I try to allow for contingencies as best I can, but there are limitations. There is no point in an overabundance of caution because that certainly means missing out on lots of fun & interesting stuff - the cost of the "insurance" is too high. Nor can every contingency be allowed for - no one anticipates being caught up in New Zealand's first and only hijacking attempt, or on another trip being stranded in Invercargill. So I attempt to achieve a balance - having somewhat risky itineraries (risky in the sense of having tight connections and complicated sequences of flights across multiple tickets) but also have worked out there are somewhat acceptable options available to me if things go wrong.

The easiest way to deal with this I have found is to be prepared and to be prepared to change.

In my recent trip I was very lucky. Things went relatively smoothly but it could have easily ended up missing out on half of it.

First, the British Airways strike was called off. If it had gone ahead I would potentially have been stranded in Spain, United Kingdom or Cyprus. While that isn't bad in itself (more time to enjoy those places) it would mean ditching a significant portion of the next part of the trip (ie not going to Cyprus or missing my southeast Asia legs) and also time wasted on rebooking flights and accommodation across multiple airlines, hotels and countries spread halfway around the world.

Second, through sheer luck I avoided the travel chaos in Europe (and particularly to London Heathrow) caused by the snow and cold this winter. Indeed I travelled through Europe without even carrying a heavy coat.

Thirdly, I managed to limit disruption caused by immigration computer failure to an inconvenienced transit instead of being stranded for days.

I have an upcoming trip I'm currently in discussions with the airline about. A cancelled British Airways flight means my booked itinerary is now impossible - the alternative later flight arrives too late to take the connecting flight, the alternative earlier flight means a risky 60 minute connection at London Heathrow (BA to BA but still high risk) which I'm not prepared to accept and there are no other airlines that fly the route within my time window. Due to the complexity of my itinerary and incredibly tight timeframes this one flight change will affect anywhere from 3 to 7 or more flights, across 3 continents. Some of the places I'm visiting only have 1 flight a day so coming up with a new routing is proving challenging. However, there are options open to me and I can choose the best one for my needs.

Despite these travel inconveniences I won't change my hectic approach to travel because compromise means missing out on great experiences, sights and learnings. I still have many to meet, and much to see and do. That means I'll keep on going full paced with no regrets.

Expect longer delays at New York JFK March to July

Those who've flown to or from New York JFK airport know all about lengthy delays which are legendary amongst frequent flyers. Yesterday came news of at least 4 months of even longer delays as the biggest runway will get rebuilt.

Cranky Flier spells out what is happening and what it means. The upshot is hope weather conditions are right whenever you fly through JFK, and if possible try to avoid it for the spring and early summer period. After a couple of years of mainly avoiding New York and USA in general it looks like I picked a bad time to use New York as a base for some of my (northern hemisphere) spring & summer trips.

British Airways - possible strike in March

A British Airways cabin crew strike at Christmas was cancelled by court injunction. The union has announced a revote starting 22 January (source The Guardian), which indicates a possible strike in March. Given the length of voting period required and minimum notice periods, the earliest possible strike date is about 26 or 27 February.

At this stage the revote seems likely to again pass, with a very high vote in favour of strike the first time around and union leaders agitating over working conditions during the extreme snow event currently being experienced in Europe.

In the meantime, BA travellers hope talks between management and unions reach a solution that doesn't disrupt travel plans.

TSA PR & blog gone awol

The past couple of weeks have had lots of security incidents and news, and yet curiously the TSA blog has been largely silent with their last posting well over a week ago.

Surely a period when we have had the following incidents (and more) is a time for more information and PR in order to reassure the travelling public, and not a time to shut up?

• Underpants bomber failed attempt.
• Temporary new security rules (last hour of flight remain in seat with no IFE and no items in your lap).
• Another suspected terrorist (the next day) spent "too long" in the lavatory because he had food poisoning and not because he was concocting a bomb.
• Botched attempt to find source of documents on the new security rules by subpoena'ing 2 bloggers (Chris Elliott and Steven Frischling) who published the widely disseminated documents.
• Apparently permanent new security rules (pat down and bag search for all passengers flying from other countries to USA).
• Newark terminal shut-down where security failed to spot someone bypassing security by entering an exit door until hours later.
• Honey being mistaken for an explosives device shutting down a Californian airport.

It has been a bad couple of weeks for TSA. I'm shocked at the lack of care in the incidents, but also at the lack of appropriate treatment in communicating well with travellers.

Backup plan for flight misconnections - part two

Several days ago I posted some ideas about having a backup plan in case of flight misconnections, using my own potential misconnect as an example. At the time I wrote it I was comfortable the risk was both low and could be mitigated easily.

In the event there was a circumstance which I hadn't factored in, because it is so unusual. In transferring between these two flights I had to clear immigration and customs, go landside to check in for my onward flight, and go back through security to board. Unfortunately for me, at midnight 1 January the immigration computers went down. My flight landed after midnight and I joined a queue of at least 1500 people.

With the computers down processing was incredibly slow and it looked like it might take 6 hours to clear immigration. This would mean not only would I miss my flight, but by the time I'd arrive at the check in counters the staff would have all gone (the last flight for many hours on that airline having long departed) and so the backup options of rebooking would also be difficult to apply.

When I realised this I found someone official looking and enlisted their assistance. I was polite, clearly explained the situation, and left it to him to find a solution. I picked the right person and the right time to ask because he assisted me to jump the queue - passing several hundreds of travelers ahead of me. If he hadn't been able to help I would have tried other people - even to the extent of going backwards up the queue to find a police officer if necessary. It was a close call - by the time I cleared immigration and customs and reached check in it was only 15 minutes before departure - but I made it.

If I hadn't asked but instead had just waited patiently in the queue until it was my turn, I definitely would have missed the flights that were my original backup plan. I might not have been able to fly on the next flight options over 12 hours later (these were full although my frequent flyer status would have put me at the top of the queue in case of no shows), and I certainly would have missed other onward flights on my itineray, requiring further rebooking of flights.

What are the lessons I learned?

1) Be prepared. By having all the facts about onward flights I knew what my options were and were not. Even while it was tense waiting in line I knew if I was still okay or not. Knowing is better than not knowing.

2) Being aware of time limitations. I knew when the check in staff would be finishing up, so could wait patiently while there was still time but act differently when I needed to.

3) Enlisting help. Instead of just accepting a misconnection I enlisted others to help me out.

It is not the first time I've been in this situation, and I doubt it will be the last time. By being prepared I was able to be proactive instead of reactive, which lead to a much better outcome for me.

Having a backup plan for flight misconnections

Many readers of this blog or my trip reports on Flyer Talk (eg this trip report) know I spend a fair bit of time preparing for the possibility of things going wrong with flights. Not matter how well prepared there is always a chance of the unexpected causing a flight misconnection or to miss a meeting - be it stormy weather, airline schedule changes, aircraft maintenance issues, new security rules, hold ups for VIPs to arrive or airshows to take place, and so on.

Today I have such a potential issue to deal with and am taking a few minutes out of my busy day to prepare myself as well as I can. When I booked this trip many months ago, a connection I have later today seemed more than reasonable with an acceptably low risk of misconnection. However, heightened security and immigration checks following the underpants bomber incident the other day means I now have a higher risk of not making the onward flight. It is not certain that I will misconnect, but the chance is higher than my threshold for comfort and worry-free travel.

So there are a few steps I'm taking now to mitigate the risks.

1) Consider if it really matters if I misconnect? If it isn't too important then I should stop worrying and do more fun &/or productive things instead.

Unfortunately for me, misconnecting here will cause significant inconvenience.

2) Try to check in for the onward flight. If already checked in this reduces the risk of misconnection in two ways. First, I save time from not needing to go to check in at the transfer airport (with a likely struggle to meet check in deadlines) and instead can go directly through security to the departure gate. Secondly, the airline operating the second flight is more likely to hold the flight a few minutes if necessary so I can board if I am already checked in than hold it for a longer time if I am not already checked in.

Unfortunately for me, I have not been successful in checking in for the onward flight.

3) See if other flight options are available.

Using availability tools (like seatcounter.com) I see there are several possible solutions if I misconnect. I could be rerouted and there are a couple of flights with spare seats operated by the same airline that still get me where I need to go in time for when I need to be there, and most crucially depart an hour later than the flight I'm booked on. Or, I could be moved to one of 2 other airlines that operate this particular route, both of which have later flights with spare seats. Both of these solutions depend on the goodwill of the airline which I'm booked on.

A misconnect would only occur for reasons outside my control (I haven't just arrived at the airport late due to sleeping in). I am travelling on an expensive ticket. I have high frequent flyer status with the alliance the airline is a member of. So, I think the odds are good that they would accommodate me on one of those options if needed.

4) Consider whether to be proactive or reactive. I have a choice to make - take the flight I am booked on and hope to make the onward connection, or change my flights to a less risky alternative? The change option requires either flexible tickets with the alternative being within the ticket fare rules, or acceptance by the airline that the risk of misconnection is high enough to warrant a proactive change.

In my case today, a misconnection is not sure enough for the airline to volunteer to make changes proactively. However, I do have flexible ticket and so could reroute (but not switch to the other airlines flying the same route as this is not within the fare rules and thus not allowed as a voluntary change). I've decided not to reroute voluntarily because it does not seem necessary in my circumstance - I'll either make the onward flight (most likely outcome in my view) or the airline will satisfactorily resolve a misconnection (quite likely in my view). Being stranded seems fairly unlikely, based on current information I have and I am lucky enough to be in a position to be relatively well informed of any late developments. (This isn't always the case. Many times I've been travelling a complicated itinerary when something has gone wrong and had to make decisions based on little information, and more importantly try to convince airlines to make changes on the fly at the same time.)

5) Keep an eye open for changes to the situation. There may be things between now and boarding of my next flight that changes the situation. For example if the flight is significantly delayed then the risk of misconnection becomes much greater and the airline may be willing to reroute or rebook of their accord. One way I can keep appraised is to check flightstats.com, as well as watching departure screens (if accessible) and news websites for any major change to security rules.

Travel security rules in flux

In the aftermath of the incident on the Amsterdam to Detroit flight, travel security rules are again in a state of flux. For now, changes appear to mainly affect flights to/from USA. However, additional security delays are affecting passengers on all flights at major international hubs.

Since the new rules are not yet finalised, airline websites have scanty or possibly out of date information. Some of the rules are only being advised once onboard. As a general rule, allow more time at airports for check in and for security and be prepared to deal with changes. For example those in the middle of a trip with 2 carry ons may find they can only take one bag onboard.

As the situation unfolds I can only hope that we now don't have a war on solids to match the war on liquids.

US Passenger Bill of Rights

A christmas present for some, the US Department of Trade (DOT) has issued rules around maximum times passengers can be held onboard on the ground. I haven't had a chance to read the rules but earlier when I heard it was being considered I was sceptical that we'd end up with a practical scheme.

Cranky Flier seems to share my concerns and brings up a few practical issues with the DOT mandate.

British Airways Christmas strike is off

To the great relief of a million travellers, a court ruling has cancelled the BA strike that was to be held by cabin crew between 22 December and 2 January. British Airways and the union have not resolved their differences, so a strike in 2010 is still possible but it cannot be held until after another vote. So BA flights are safe for at least the next month.

Strike season

Adding to the normal holiday season travel hassles are several strikes and an airline failure.

1. British Airways cabin crew (Unite union) on strike from 22 December to 2 January.
2. Some airport ground staff (coincidentally also Unite union) at Aberdeen and London Heathrow on strike 22-23 December, 26-27 December and 3-4 January. Affected airlines include Air France-KLM, Atlantic and Wideroe at Aberdeen and Emirates, Thai and Turkish at Heathrow.
3. Some Qantas engineers on strike 17-21 December and again in January.
4. Eurostar staff on strike 18-19 December and 26-27 December.
5. UK budget airline flyglobespan has shut down.

Good luck to all those impacted. For some general advice, see my post on travel strikes from 2 years ago.

British Airways strike (22 Dec to 2 Jan) update #1

There are a few options for affected customers (ie those booked to fly BA between 20 December and 4 January), although these will not necessarily solve all issues.

1) Right to cancel with cancellation penalties waived.

2) Right to change dates within 12 months with change fee waived.

3) If your ticket is a flexible fare (eg a Oneworld Explorer) you may be able to reroute, switch airlines or change dates in accordance with fare rules.

4) When flights are cancelled you can be rebooked on other airlines.

So far BA has not yet cancelled flights but instead has blocked every flight from being sold (to cap the number of people they need to deal with). People with affected flights who have the means (ie lots of $$) to book refundable tickets on other airlines are doing so because there may be no options available by the time BA gets around to cancelling their flight. On many routes which British Airways flies the flights operated by other airlines are now either sold out or have only very expensive fares available for purchase.

The situation is fluid and will change from day to day. So it is important to keep informed (refer to news and advice on BA.com and sites such as Flyer Talk) and also to be in close contact with your travel agent if your ticket was bought through one.

British Airways strike confirmed 22 Dec to 2 Jan

The results of the BA cabin crew ballot are in, and a British Airways strike for 12 days over Christmas has been announced. Sometime today BA will respond with an announcement on how it intends to deal with the strike and assist affected passengers.

The risk averse, particularly those flying BA on or before Christmas Day, should already have made or now be making alternative plans (eg see my previous post on the potential strike).

Passengers affected by the strike, some of whom do not have the option of buying an extra ticket on another airline, rerouting voluntarily or changing dates, are waiting to see what help BA will provide (as they must under EU reg 261/2004). BA should start contacting passengers flying on 22nd in the next couple of days and then continue with passengers flying on later dates.

In my case I have 3 BA flights in the strike period, none in the first couple of days of it. I am sitting tight for now - there is a chance the strike may be called off. If it is not then I have some unpalatable choices about contingencies to make later this week. I have already researched other airline options to my destinations, and backup accommodation if I get stuck en route. I won't be waiting too long to make any changes because the alternatives will quickly sell out now the strike has been confirmed.